if not the VERY first story that I wrote for this forum! Since it deals with this time of year, I thought some of you newer members might get a kick out of it, and the ones of you that have.....won't hurt my feelings one bit if you skip it! So..............Happy Independence Day to all of you in the good ole USA, and the rest of you have a glorious day also!
Arkie John As Tarzan, the Watermelon Man
Date: Saturday, 12 June 2004, at 2:36 p.m.
When John, Tom and I were younger, (and I say it this way because I will not accept the fact that I can be classified as older at this point), Daddy would stop working for a change and decide the family was just going to enjoy the day. One of our favorite holidays was the Fourth of July. It was on this day, in the humid, lazy days of summer that only Arkansas experiences, that we would go to the Saline River, to a place called Cecil Jones'. Now, Cecil Jones was a country grocery store sitting on the banks of the Saline River. Back then, there were no picnic tables or parking lots. You simply parked at the grocery, went in and bought something, mostly to appease old Mr. Jones, and he would let you move your car to the side of the lot, and go behind the grocery store to the river for a day of family fun.
Back then, only the richest people had swimming pools in their back yard, and the only pool we had access to was the public swimming pool, now also long gone.
Mama, daddy, John, Tom and myself would take a picnic of fried chicken, or cold sandwiches and potato salad, just whatever mama could scavenge up at the time, and go enjoy the day. Cecil's had a big ole willow tree that hung over the water, and at one point someone had tied a rope high up in the tree so one could swing out across the water. You could always tell when it was John's turn, because he would always let out that bellowing Tarzan yell (Tarzan being one of his heroes at the time), and swing as high as that old rope would accommodate him and drop like a rock into that cold river water. In order to get to this rope, one had to swim across the river, climb the muddy bank, and by the time you got the rope, you were so covered with mud you needed to get into that water just to get clean again.
All three of us would make mama a nervous wreck because of a near drowning accident she experienced as ten year old. (Her brothers threw her off an inner tube in the middle of a lake, can you imagine a brother doing something like that.....well, yeah!) While some people learn to swim from an experience of this nature, she did not. Therefore, growing up, I never knew my mother to own a swimsuit. She didn't need one because she never got in any body of water deeper than her ankles. Over John's Tarzan yells, you could hear mama yelling "Johnny get down from there, or "Linda Jean, you better come back closer", or "Tommy, you better not get out of my sight". All the while, daddy would sit there with a big grin on his face, knowing full well he had taught us all to swim like fish, and he would say "Now Mama, just relax. I'm right here". And he was. On special times, much to our delight, daddy would dive in and let us jump off of his shoulders.
Around noon time, mama would get out the lunch she had prepared, and we would all sit out on a quilt to eat. Of course all John ever wanted was a bologna sandwich, which we spell it and say it like bolonie. Then, we would have to wait the proper thirty minutes before we could swim again.
The only thing that could drag us out of the water as the sun would start to set, was knowing we had an ice cold water melon waiting for us at home. Watermelon was a treat for us, and I can't eat it to this day without thinking about Cecil Jones' and the river.
This particular day, after pleading with mama and daddy "just one more swing" about twenty times each, daddy gave us "the eye" and we knew we were really pushing the envelope. So we gave in, wrapped up in the sun dried towels that smelled like sunshine itself (we didn't own a clothes dryer), and went home for the watermelon.
I will never forget this particular holiday, for when we got home, daddy got the watermelon from the refrigerator (we did have one of those eventually) and set it on the cabinet. John, pulling rank yells, "I'm going to cut the watermelon", then I charged "I don't think so, I think I will" as I drug the twelve inch butcher knife out of the knife drawer. (Can you imagine, a ten year old with a butcher knife? Now days, we panic if our children run from the silverware drawer to the table with a fork!!!) Anyway, I had the butcher knife, and Tarzan,.....I mean John, decided to grab it from me determined to cut that watermelon. Well, he grabbed it all right, but he grabbed the blade, and in doing so, cut his right hand between thumb and forefinger. The emergency room doctor said if it had been just a smidgen deeper (that really was the word he used), that it would have really messed up his hand, tendons, and all.
It took a bit of time to drag John to the car to go to the emergency room. Needless to say, he was yellin', but it didn't sound anything like Tarzan anymore, it was more like a baby!
(I can laugh now!)
I think I really did feel bad, but geez, you would think Tarzan had more sense than to grab the blade of a twelve inch butcher knife. It wasn't MY fault, and besides that, now we couldn't even eat the watermelon because JOHN had to go to the emergency room, and if JOHN couldn
Arkie John As Tarzan, the Watermelon Man
Date: Saturday, 12 June 2004, at 2:36 p.m.
When John, Tom and I were younger, (and I say it this way because I will not accept the fact that I can be classified as older at this point), Daddy would stop working for a change and decide the family was just going to enjoy the day. One of our favorite holidays was the Fourth of July. It was on this day, in the humid, lazy days of summer that only Arkansas experiences, that we would go to the Saline River, to a place called Cecil Jones'. Now, Cecil Jones was a country grocery store sitting on the banks of the Saline River. Back then, there were no picnic tables or parking lots. You simply parked at the grocery, went in and bought something, mostly to appease old Mr. Jones, and he would let you move your car to the side of the lot, and go behind the grocery store to the river for a day of family fun.
Back then, only the richest people had swimming pools in their back yard, and the only pool we had access to was the public swimming pool, now also long gone.
Mama, daddy, John, Tom and myself would take a picnic of fried chicken, or cold sandwiches and potato salad, just whatever mama could scavenge up at the time, and go enjoy the day. Cecil's had a big ole willow tree that hung over the water, and at one point someone had tied a rope high up in the tree so one could swing out across the water. You could always tell when it was John's turn, because he would always let out that bellowing Tarzan yell (Tarzan being one of his heroes at the time), and swing as high as that old rope would accommodate him and drop like a rock into that cold river water. In order to get to this rope, one had to swim across the river, climb the muddy bank, and by the time you got the rope, you were so covered with mud you needed to get into that water just to get clean again.
All three of us would make mama a nervous wreck because of a near drowning accident she experienced as ten year old. (Her brothers threw her off an inner tube in the middle of a lake, can you imagine a brother doing something like that.....well, yeah!) While some people learn to swim from an experience of this nature, she did not. Therefore, growing up, I never knew my mother to own a swimsuit. She didn't need one because she never got in any body of water deeper than her ankles. Over John's Tarzan yells, you could hear mama yelling "Johnny get down from there, or "Linda Jean, you better come back closer", or "Tommy, you better not get out of my sight". All the while, daddy would sit there with a big grin on his face, knowing full well he had taught us all to swim like fish, and he would say "Now Mama, just relax. I'm right here". And he was. On special times, much to our delight, daddy would dive in and let us jump off of his shoulders.
Around noon time, mama would get out the lunch she had prepared, and we would all sit out on a quilt to eat. Of course all John ever wanted was a bologna sandwich, which we spell it and say it like bolonie. Then, we would have to wait the proper thirty minutes before we could swim again.
The only thing that could drag us out of the water as the sun would start to set, was knowing we had an ice cold water melon waiting for us at home. Watermelon was a treat for us, and I can't eat it to this day without thinking about Cecil Jones' and the river.
This particular day, after pleading with mama and daddy "just one more swing" about twenty times each, daddy gave us "the eye" and we knew we were really pushing the envelope. So we gave in, wrapped up in the sun dried towels that smelled like sunshine itself (we didn't own a clothes dryer), and went home for the watermelon.
I will never forget this particular holiday, for when we got home, daddy got the watermelon from the refrigerator (we did have one of those eventually) and set it on the cabinet. John, pulling rank yells, "I'm going to cut the watermelon", then I charged "I don't think so, I think I will" as I drug the twelve inch butcher knife out of the knife drawer. (Can you imagine, a ten year old with a butcher knife? Now days, we panic if our children run from the silverware drawer to the table with a fork!!!) Anyway, I had the butcher knife, and Tarzan,.....I mean John, decided to grab it from me determined to cut that watermelon. Well, he grabbed it all right, but he grabbed the blade, and in doing so, cut his right hand between thumb and forefinger. The emergency room doctor said if it had been just a smidgen deeper (that really was the word he used), that it would have really messed up his hand, tendons, and all.
It took a bit of time to drag John to the car to go to the emergency room. Needless to say, he was yellin', but it didn't sound anything like Tarzan anymore, it was more like a baby!
(I can laugh now!)I think I really did feel bad, but geez, you would think Tarzan had more sense than to grab the blade of a twelve inch butcher knife. It wasn't MY fault, and besides that, now we couldn't even eat the watermelon because JOHN had to go to the emergency room, and if JOHN couldn
That was a great story ! Thanks for posting it !!
